Raleigh 2006
I don't know why, but I'm skipping Lollapalooza Day 3 and going straight for Raleigh 2006.
Our part-time employee starts school very soon, so I had a little vacation time available with the prospect for more murky at best. I mean, I'm sure I'll have some eventually, but I just don't know how soon it'll be totally easy.
Anyway, I wanted to go somewhere in the states I'd never been before. I'd recently met this couple from Slovenia, friends of Wally, who, on their vacation, came to the states and drove across our country. Route 66 and all that.
My friend George invited me to come out and stay with him. So I did.
Things started out rather nightmarishly. I'd made my travel arrangements online. And the night before I was to leave, I realized that my departure time was for 7:42 pm and not am. I decided to just get to the airport as early as I could and try to get a standby flight.
Well, first I woke up later than I'd wanted.
I get to the airport and fly through security. There's an 11:00 am flight I'm trying for. I'm like fifth on the standby list. I've been lower on the list and made flights, so I'm a little hopeful.
The flight comes and passes. The good news is that I'm on the top of the list for the next flight, which is only 57 minutes later - and the gate is K-9, which means 'dog,' so I have a really good feeling about the next flight.
Alas, the next flight comes and goes. Despite being first in a list of 14, I do not get on this flight, but like 9 other people on the list do. I'm a little incensed, and the next flight's not til around 4 pm. Luckily I brought my camera and plenty of Preacher comics.
Here's the only picture of a cute guy I took, though. It was slim pickins. Certainly no smorgasbord of hotness like Lollapalooza.
Kinda Anderson Cooper-esque. I think he mighta been a pilot. He talked to the pilot he's talking to for a good half hour.
While I was waiting, I saw this guy come up to one of the remote computers and start playing with it. The guy had no official looking nametags or anything like that. He looked to me to be of Indian descent maybe. But he was dressed in khaki pants and a blue checkered shirt. He looked conservative and boring. He didn't look like he was idly seeing if he could get the computer to work, like maybe someone trying to get free web-time to check their email or something. He looked like he had a sense of purpose. And when he was done doing whatever he was doin', he very casually walked away from the machine.
At O'Hare, most of the check-in kiosks are sort of self-contained, but there are a few instances where the gate has a computer just sitting by itself. The whole thing freaked me out a little bit. Especially how casual he was about it. He had a boarding pass in the front breast pocket of his shirt.
I went up to this woman who was working at a nearby gate and said, "This is kinda weird, but are the computers out there supposed to be for public use?"
She was like, "Wha?" She's like "that's not a computer, that's a [I forget]. Here, I'll show you.
It sure looked like a computer to me. It was running on Windows, to be sure.
She was like, "maybe he's who was messin' up my computer. Maybe he's why mine keeps freezing." She goes to the terminal and keeps pressing buttons including the esc and delete keys, but it doesn't seem to do anything. After about 45 seconds of this, she's like, "I finnin' go home." She walks back to her gate, grabs her coat, and walks away.
It was kinda frustrating. I kept thinking about the guy changing manifests or something. I mean, I didn't know what kind of act of terrorism someone could do using those machines, but I bet there's something.
I decided to go walk some more and see if I could find him, which I did. He was not too far away and he seemed to look right at me when he saw me.
He slipped my gaze again and then I lost him. It was bugging me, still, but I felt like I already tried to get someone to help, so I just kept my eyes open to see if I saw him again, but I didn't.
I can't remember if it was the third or fourth flight, but I finally got on a plane. It was exciting.
I didn't arrive in Raleigh until after 7 pm sometime, so it kinda sucked, cuz I was leaving early Thursday morning, so this effectively cut my trip to 2 full days, and my host was scheduled to work Tuesday early and late Wednesday.
We made the most of it, though; I had a great time.
We decided to go get some food and see Little Miss Sunshine. We got pizza from the local pizza place whose owner is totally cute and then went to see the movie at a little single screen indie place called The Rialto.
On the way there, this kid was playing with one of those toy helicopters that you pull a cord and they fly up in the air. He asked excitedly as we walked by if we wanted to see and we both said that we did.
Here's my host, George. He's so sweet and cute.
And here's a picture of a pretty typical Raleigh Residence. Notice lots of flowers.
There're lots of flowers in Raleigh.
There's not a lot of street art, but I did find this:
On the second day, George worked, so I ended up going to a local cafe and reading most the day. It was pretty enjoyable.
After George got home from work, we decided on dinner and a trip to see some local music.
We went to a new restaurant called Milltown, which was pretty good. Kinda slightly more gourmet bar food; nothing too spectacular.
We went to a place called Lantern for dessert, which was delicious and the decor was practically what you might find in New York or any other Urban Metropolitan city. The things I did notice were inconsistencies that really were the foundation of what makes good design good, though. For example, in the bathroom, the sink fixture was plastic. It looked very cheap. The decor for the rest of the bathroom was perfect, but the fixtures ruined it. Also, the mirror was not bevelled and was not framed. It hung with little plastic hangers. Aside from those details, the bathroom was great.
I took a couple pictures with no lens on my camera. Here's one:
Here's one with lens:
Here's me trying to take a picture of both of us. Had to use manual focus, cuz the camera had no idea what to focus on in that lighting:
Even blurry, George's smile looks stunning.
At a venue called Local 506, we saw two bands.
Eyes To Space
(check out that home-made keytar!)
and Get Him Eat Him (or something like that)
On the last full day, Wednesday, we were gonna go to the Farmers' Market in downtown Raleigh. We were a little early, so we walked down this pedestrian-only street to look at shops. There was one called Amazing Glaze, which is one of those places where you paint pre-made pottery and they fire it for you. We decided we needed to paint some pottery to have mementos. It was great fun.
We made each other cute little mugs to a Cars album and then some duet album featuring some reggae guy whom we didn't recognize, but the first two duets were with this guy and 1) Willie Nelson and 2) Bonnie Raitt, so it was kind of cool.
A bit later, we made it to the farmers' market. Here's me holding up an acorn (Raleigh is known as the "city of oaks," and the acorn is kind of a central icon in their iconography):
Here's George buying bread from the bakery for which he used to work - indeed, the baker for which he originally came to Raleigh in the first place (a partnership long-since abandoned).
These characters seemed like the embodiment of "Farmers' Market."
This guy sold cheese:
We saw this totally cute puppy layin' in the back of a hatchback and it totally made me call home to see how Racecar was doin'.
Cool building murals:
Today was oppressively hot. Probably why this sheriff was taking it easy at the gas station.
Oh yeah, and he's fat.
Oh, and then we saw Snakes On A Plane!!!
It was pretty fun. I'd recommend it. Suspenseful and gory. Yayy!!
After the movie, we stopped at Lake Johnston (Johnson?). We took turns posing for pictures and taking pictures of hot guys as they jogged by.
That's George's inconspicuous look. Nice.
When we got home, George made some fantastic sandwiches from stuff he picked up from the Farmers' Market. One was a fig, goat cheese and prosciutto and the other was a delicious BLT. Sooo good.
Later, George took me to the gay bar where he works in a kind of a "take-your-out-of-town-visitor-to-work-day exercise.
Project Runway was playing on the TV with closed captioning, so I didn't complain. I'd never seen a full episode before (I know - there's no need for comment on this really, is there? I'm out of the loop), so it was fun. I always knew I'd like it.
I got to meet some of the local homos, and they were nice and friendly.
Oh, and the peanuts!
George had to work til just after 2 am, and I stayed for the whole thing. I was drunk and exhausted when we left. We woke up late and I was nervous I was going to miss my flight and sit in an airport for another 6 hours, but we made it (RDU's a little less crowded than O'Hare). However, Chicago was having bad storms, so we were grounded a full 2 and a half hours before we could take off. More catastrophe. I guess it coulda been much worse.
Our part-time employee starts school very soon, so I had a little vacation time available with the prospect for more murky at best. I mean, I'm sure I'll have some eventually, but I just don't know how soon it'll be totally easy.
Anyway, I wanted to go somewhere in the states I'd never been before. I'd recently met this couple from Slovenia, friends of Wally, who, on their vacation, came to the states and drove across our country. Route 66 and all that.
My friend George invited me to come out and stay with him. So I did.
Things started out rather nightmarishly. I'd made my travel arrangements online. And the night before I was to leave, I realized that my departure time was for 7:42 pm and not am. I decided to just get to the airport as early as I could and try to get a standby flight.
Well, first I woke up later than I'd wanted.
I get to the airport and fly through security. There's an 11:00 am flight I'm trying for. I'm like fifth on the standby list. I've been lower on the list and made flights, so I'm a little hopeful.
The flight comes and passes. The good news is that I'm on the top of the list for the next flight, which is only 57 minutes later - and the gate is K-9, which means 'dog,' so I have a really good feeling about the next flight.
Alas, the next flight comes and goes. Despite being first in a list of 14, I do not get on this flight, but like 9 other people on the list do. I'm a little incensed, and the next flight's not til around 4 pm. Luckily I brought my camera and plenty of Preacher comics.
Here's the only picture of a cute guy I took, though. It was slim pickins. Certainly no smorgasbord of hotness like Lollapalooza.
Kinda Anderson Cooper-esque. I think he mighta been a pilot. He talked to the pilot he's talking to for a good half hour.
While I was waiting, I saw this guy come up to one of the remote computers and start playing with it. The guy had no official looking nametags or anything like that. He looked to me to be of Indian descent maybe. But he was dressed in khaki pants and a blue checkered shirt. He looked conservative and boring. He didn't look like he was idly seeing if he could get the computer to work, like maybe someone trying to get free web-time to check their email or something. He looked like he had a sense of purpose. And when he was done doing whatever he was doin', he very casually walked away from the machine.
At O'Hare, most of the check-in kiosks are sort of self-contained, but there are a few instances where the gate has a computer just sitting by itself. The whole thing freaked me out a little bit. Especially how casual he was about it. He had a boarding pass in the front breast pocket of his shirt.
I went up to this woman who was working at a nearby gate and said, "This is kinda weird, but are the computers out there supposed to be for public use?"
She was like, "Wha?" She's like "that's not a computer, that's a [I forget]. Here, I'll show you.
It sure looked like a computer to me. It was running on Windows, to be sure.
She was like, "maybe he's who was messin' up my computer. Maybe he's why mine keeps freezing." She goes to the terminal and keeps pressing buttons including the esc and delete keys, but it doesn't seem to do anything. After about 45 seconds of this, she's like, "I finnin' go home." She walks back to her gate, grabs her coat, and walks away.
It was kinda frustrating. I kept thinking about the guy changing manifests or something. I mean, I didn't know what kind of act of terrorism someone could do using those machines, but I bet there's something.
I decided to go walk some more and see if I could find him, which I did. He was not too far away and he seemed to look right at me when he saw me.
He slipped my gaze again and then I lost him. It was bugging me, still, but I felt like I already tried to get someone to help, so I just kept my eyes open to see if I saw him again, but I didn't.
I can't remember if it was the third or fourth flight, but I finally got on a plane. It was exciting.
I didn't arrive in Raleigh until after 7 pm sometime, so it kinda sucked, cuz I was leaving early Thursday morning, so this effectively cut my trip to 2 full days, and my host was scheduled to work Tuesday early and late Wednesday.
We made the most of it, though; I had a great time.
We decided to go get some food and see Little Miss Sunshine. We got pizza from the local pizza place whose owner is totally cute and then went to see the movie at a little single screen indie place called The Rialto.
On the way there, this kid was playing with one of those toy helicopters that you pull a cord and they fly up in the air. He asked excitedly as we walked by if we wanted to see and we both said that we did.
Here's my host, George. He's so sweet and cute.
And here's a picture of a pretty typical Raleigh Residence. Notice lots of flowers.
There're lots of flowers in Raleigh.
There's not a lot of street art, but I did find this:
On the second day, George worked, so I ended up going to a local cafe and reading most the day. It was pretty enjoyable.
After George got home from work, we decided on dinner and a trip to see some local music.
We went to a new restaurant called Milltown, which was pretty good. Kinda slightly more gourmet bar food; nothing too spectacular.
We went to a place called Lantern for dessert, which was delicious and the decor was practically what you might find in New York or any other Urban Metropolitan city. The things I did notice were inconsistencies that really were the foundation of what makes good design good, though. For example, in the bathroom, the sink fixture was plastic. It looked very cheap. The decor for the rest of the bathroom was perfect, but the fixtures ruined it. Also, the mirror was not bevelled and was not framed. It hung with little plastic hangers. Aside from those details, the bathroom was great.
I took a couple pictures with no lens on my camera. Here's one:
Here's one with lens:
Here's me trying to take a picture of both of us. Had to use manual focus, cuz the camera had no idea what to focus on in that lighting:
Even blurry, George's smile looks stunning.
At a venue called Local 506, we saw two bands.
Eyes To Space
(check out that home-made keytar!)
and Get Him Eat Him (or something like that)
On the last full day, Wednesday, we were gonna go to the Farmers' Market in downtown Raleigh. We were a little early, so we walked down this pedestrian-only street to look at shops. There was one called Amazing Glaze, which is one of those places where you paint pre-made pottery and they fire it for you. We decided we needed to paint some pottery to have mementos. It was great fun.
We made each other cute little mugs to a Cars album and then some duet album featuring some reggae guy whom we didn't recognize, but the first two duets were with this guy and 1) Willie Nelson and 2) Bonnie Raitt, so it was kind of cool.
A bit later, we made it to the farmers' market. Here's me holding up an acorn (Raleigh is known as the "city of oaks," and the acorn is kind of a central icon in their iconography):
Here's George buying bread from the bakery for which he used to work - indeed, the baker for which he originally came to Raleigh in the first place (a partnership long-since abandoned).
These characters seemed like the embodiment of "Farmers' Market."
This guy sold cheese:
We saw this totally cute puppy layin' in the back of a hatchback and it totally made me call home to see how Racecar was doin'.
Cool building murals:
Today was oppressively hot. Probably why this sheriff was taking it easy at the gas station.
Oh yeah, and he's fat.
Oh, and then we saw Snakes On A Plane!!!
It was pretty fun. I'd recommend it. Suspenseful and gory. Yayy!!
After the movie, we stopped at Lake Johnston (Johnson?). We took turns posing for pictures and taking pictures of hot guys as they jogged by.
That's George's inconspicuous look. Nice.
When we got home, George made some fantastic sandwiches from stuff he picked up from the Farmers' Market. One was a fig, goat cheese and prosciutto and the other was a delicious BLT. Sooo good.
Later, George took me to the gay bar where he works in a kind of a "take-your-out-of-town-visitor-to-work-day exercise.
Project Runway was playing on the TV with closed captioning, so I didn't complain. I'd never seen a full episode before (I know - there's no need for comment on this really, is there? I'm out of the loop), so it was fun. I always knew I'd like it.
I got to meet some of the local homos, and they were nice and friendly.
Oh, and the peanuts!
George had to work til just after 2 am, and I stayed for the whole thing. I was drunk and exhausted when we left. We woke up late and I was nervous I was going to miss my flight and sit in an airport for another 6 hours, but we made it (RDU's a little less crowded than O'Hare). However, Chicago was having bad storms, so we were grounded a full 2 and a half hours before we could take off. More catastrophe. I guess it coulda been much worse.
posted by Brian at
5:14 PM
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